


Easy To Forget Me

by cafephan



Series: 'Up At Night' albumfic [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 10k+, Albumfic, Angst, Flirting, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Pre-smut, Songfic, Swearing, poet!dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafephan/pseuds/cafephan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan is a poet oblivious to the world of relationships, Phil has commitment issues. They become friends with benefits. But Dan finds that over time, one of their benefits was never truthfulness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy To Forget Me

This fic is the first in the series of the albumfic I’m writing for Cimorelli’s new album _‘Up At Night’_!!

( All of the songfics in the series/albumfic will be individual oneshots and not connected with each other in any way unless stated otherwise )

You can listen to the album on Spotify **[here](https://open.spotify.com/album/4pv75GYzV5YkC4xazXHXOM)**  to get an idea of what fics to expect in the future!

As you probably guessed from the title, this is to the song _‘Easy To Forget Me’_ from the album, and I hope you enjoy this and the rest of the series!!

(YouTube link for the song **[here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPzrsGId0c4)**  in case you can’t access the Spotify link)

* * *

 

He had read about it in books. He had seen it in movies.

_Heartbreak. True love._ The very things every writers’ guide told him to avoid using.

Dan Howell had never been that interested in the whole concept of love. He was never one to beg for dates, kiss around. He never saw the appeal of slow dancing at a school dance, the appeal of the girls’ plump red-glossed lips, and grinding against classmates on the cheap dancefloor.

He wrote about those things, though never felt the need to experience it for himself. He wrote for himself and nobody else, filled the bare, peeling walls of his flat with his words, similes bouncing from the plaster and metaphors reflecting from the chipped parquet flooring. He was happy, content in his ways, writing about what everyone around him was experiencing for themselves.

Until Phil Lester came into the picture.

They met on a blustery autumn morning, in a coffeeshop of all places. It was a one-off for Dan, running out of instant coffee for the first time since he moved into the flat six months prior. He disguised his smile at seeing all of the customers on their expensive laptops, typing away in between sips of high-energy caffeine beverages. He mused they were like a pack of sheep, conforming to the internet generation’s stereotype. A simile popped into his head, and he quickly scribbled it onto a napkin and shoved it into his pocket.

Coffee in hand, he thanked the barista and turned on his heel, eager to get home and scribble down a new creation.

Phil was in a rush that morning, and the morning seemed to rebel. The gale-force winds managed to send his glasses askew across his face, and his scarf was whipped behind him so tightly he was nearly strangling himself. He needed the sweet relief only bitter coffee could provide – Dan always grinned at hearing Phil’s description of it, he loved using oxymoronic comparisons -  and he needed it quickly. The door to the coffeeshop was slammed a little too loudly, being carried with the wind, and a final gust of wind sent Phil barrelling into Dan, causing their greetings to each other to be gasps of pain as the scalding hot coffee poured over both sets of shoes, and Dan’s hands balled into fists.

But as Phil was apologising profusely, Dan couldn’t find it in himself to be mad. He simply waited patiently whilst Phil ordered them both coffee, in one of the booths at the back of the building, hunched over another napkin and scribbling down colour connotations, and tried desperately to rack his brain for any alternatives to ‘sparking blue eyes as bright as sapphires’ and ‘hair as black as my very core’. His brain was turned to mush at the arrival of the flustered stranger that spilt coffee over him, and Dan wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it.

After an exchange of warm smiles whilst Phil was still waiting in line, Dan felt something in the pit of his stomach and eventually dragged his gaze from Phil’s and back to the napkin, flipping it over and beginning to let his words take control.

 

_New beginnings, something so new yet so familiar._

_The feeling of ambiguity, the feeling of comfort,_

_The feeling of you, your smile and your words._

_They say a smile goes a long way, a hello sticks in the mind,_

_First impressions are key, please don’t lock me out._

Dan looked down at his work with a pleasant sigh, for a two minute scrawl it wasn’t half bad. When he looked up to check on Phil, he was halfway to Dan, his tongue slightly poking out of his mouth as he put all of his effort into keeping the mugs of coffee still and steady, not to replay earlier events.

“Here we go, one full, non-spilt coffee” Phil announced with a smile as he placed Dan’s coffee in front of him, and his own mug opposite on the table as he sat directly opposite Dan.

“Some first impression, right?” he asked a minute or so later, when Dan physically couldn’t speak, it was as if something was stopping him. The annoying yet unfamiliar feeling in his stomach was intensifying.

Dan could only bite his lip, still not being able to speak. He still didn’t know why. He didn’t know why it was so difficult not to stare at Phil, it was as if he was mesmerised.

Phil was attractive, there was no doubt about it, but Dan had encountered attractive people before. He always managed to stifle out at least a ‘hello’. What was so different about Phil?

“Listen, I’m really sorry about the whole coffee thing earlier. I still feel awful… can I buy you another one? Not this one, obviously, but like, another day? When we’re both in clothes and shoes that aren’t covered in brown coffee stains. Though I have to say, I’ve never seen someone rock dirty clothes quite as well as you” Phil winked before excusing himself to the bathroom.

As soon as he left, Dan sighed, and pinched himself. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he find it in himself to speak?

The idea hit him whilst he took his last sip of coffee.

He pulled the napkin out of his pocket and signed his poem, writing down his phone number below it. He placed it on top of Phil’s coffee mug and then made his hasty escape, briskly walking back to his flat, all the time battling the growing feeling in his stomach.

‘Another coffee’ turned into a date. A date turned into another date. And the cycle repeated until one night at Phil’s flat, and conversation turned more serious over box sets of anime and glasses of wine.

“Remember this?” Phil asked, waving the napkin from their first meeting in front of Dan’s face.

“I-I can’t believe you kept this” Dan stuttered on his words as he grabbed the napkin, and read over his past words, the words that convinced Phil to call him.

“Why wouldn’t I have kept it? You’re really talented” Phil complimented, and smiled at how his words caused Dan to blush.

“You could’ve thrown it away after you got my number” Dan mumbled, and Phil shook his head.

“I could have. But that would be like throwing a part of you away, and I would _never_ do that” he promised, taking Dan’s hand loosely and threading their fingers together. Dan still hadn’t gotten used to the hand-holding even though they did it a lot, but he knew he liked it. It gave him a lot of poem inspiration. He knew he liked _Phil,_ who had quickly become Dan’s one and only muse.

“That’s just the wine talking” Dan stated, and Phil shook his head again, placing his wine glass on the table.

Phil chuckled softly and began tracing patterns on the back of Dan’s hand.

“You realise I’m never letting you go, right? You make me happy” Phil wasn’t making eye contact, and his voice was sincere.

Dan felt his cheeks burn, he actually meant something to Phil. He had read this scenario a million times before in books and even poetry, and it made his heart beat a million times a minute to think of where this conversation was leading. The concept of a relationship was foreign to him, he didn’t have the first idea what to do or what to think or say. They hadn’t even kissed yet, but should he just ask Phil? Should he wait for Phil to lead the conversation that way? Should he wait for Phil to kiss him?

Instead, he settled for being himself: sarcastic and playfully mocking.

“You realise how cliché you sound right now, right?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, and Phil feigned offence, placing his free hand over his heart.

“Hey, that hurts me, Howell” he joked, his Northern accent trailing into certain syllables. Dan found it fascinating. “But I thought you poet and writer types loved clichés?”

“Actually, we actively try to avoid them. Usually makes the reader lose interest”

“I’ll never lose interest in you”

“You’re doing it again”

And that’s when Phil kissed him. It seemed to happen in a split second, but the kiss seemed to last an eternity. It was the only eternity Dan wanted to live in.

It was soft and slow, testing and gentle, and Dan realised that all the books had gotten it wrong. That he’d gotten it wrong in his own poetry. There was no fireworks in his mind, no thrill of a first kiss. There was the sense of familiarity, that Phil’s kiss was something he’d been missing his whole life, the comforting sense of ‘this feels right’.

He smiled into the kiss as Phil pulled him closer by his shirt, and he wrapped his arms around Phil’s neck.

The books had gotten it wrong. There was really no drama over what to do with his lips, despite this being his first kiss in nine years. It was as if Phil was guiding him, teaching him as they went along, and Dan guessed he was a quick learner. They seemed to just fit together in every way, complemented each other in the best ways. The feeling in his stomach he always had around Phil was finally satisfied, and as they kissed, Dan felt a warm sensation spread through him, he felt safe.

He felt safe in Phil’s arms as they fell asleep on the sofa, his head resting on Phil’s chest. When he was on the brink of sleep, he felt Phil press a soft kiss to the top of his head, and he smiled as he closed his eyes for the final time that night.

\--

The next day, he awoke to a clatter from the kitchen. Dan wasn’t sure how Phil managed to not wake him up when he moved, but he was in the kitchen, presumably making breakfast.

“Did I wake you?” Phil asked with a grimace as Dan padded into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar.

“Technically the pans hitting the floor woke me” Dan shrugged, and Phil rolled his eyes.

“Dan Howell, always with the technicalities” he grinned, and Dan shrugged again.

“It is what it is”

It was then that Phil leaned his arms on the counter and rested his head on his hands, looking over at Dan fondly.

“Speaking of things being what they are… you spent the night” he observed, and Dan felt a blush creep up his face.

“I-I guess I did” he confirmed, and Phil grinned.

“Is it alright if I kiss you again?” he asked, studying Dan carefully.

Dan felt his lips tingle at only the thought of Phil’s kiss, and his withdrawal symptoms were already kicking in.

“Always” Dan replied with a smile, and Phil’s grin only grew as he walked around the breakfast bar to kiss Dan for the first time that day, again soft and gentle.

When they pulled apart they were both smiling in contentment, but Dan couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if their kisses were a little more passionate.

But then Phil turned back to check on the food, and Dan settled for staring at him fondly, he didn’t care how much of a cliché he was.

He had read this scenario hundreds of times, but again, he couldn’t help but feel the books had gotten it wrong.

Usually, with what he’d gathered from reading, the morning after the main character ‘spent the night’ at the house of someone they weren’t in a relationship with, was full of awkwardness, and the tension was unbearable. The other person felt obligated to cook the character breakfast, and they ate in silence. The character was then all but pushed out of the house, never to hear from the other person again, and faced the dreaded walk of shame, embarrassment hanging over them for days.

But Dan’s situation wasn’t like that. Phil was constantly cracking stupid jokes, and they were both singing to the radio at the top of their lungs, and Phil often gave into temptation and ran back over for kisses in between flipping the pancakes.

They struggled to eat, they were both laughing so hard, exchanging stories from their childhood and then teasing each other about them. It was just so easy for the two of them, conversation never ran dry and there was never an awkward moment. They watched each other with such admiration, generally in awe of the person in front of them, how lucky they were to have found someone that understands them so well, someone that makes them so effortlessly happy. Dan felt that way, anyhow.

“I can’t believe it took us three months to have our first kiss” Dan laughed.

“It would’ve been sooner but I thought you’d reject me” Phil shrugged, and Dan raised an eyebrow.

“Why would I have rejected you?” Dan asked, and Phil placed his fork on his plate and made eye contact.

“Because you’re so innocent, and I didn’t know if you would want me to”

“How am I innocent?”

“You write poetry”

“How does that make me innocent? People write poetry about stuff like death, it’s not all corny stuff!” Dan defended, feeling himself getting flustered for absolutely no reason.

“This is what I was talking about” Phil said, circling his finger around Dan’s face, “Innocent”

Dan rolled his eyes.

“I’m twenty-four years old, I’ve done some non-innocent stuff, Phil”

“Oh really?” Phil asked in amusement, “Please, enlighten me, mister rebellious”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you”

“You’re so cute” Phil cooed, and Dan was sure his cheeks were on fire by this point.

“I’m not going to kiss you anymore if you’re going to be this annoying”

“Earlier you said I could always kiss you” Phil was clearly amused by the whole conversation. Frankly, Dan was too, but he couldn’t show it as well as Phil could.

“People change”

“Okay, Danny, whatever you say” Phil teased, reaching over to ruffle Dan’s hair before collecting their now empty plates and placing them in the sink.

Dan walked back over to the sofa and turned on the tv, flicking onto a rerun of an old sitcom.

“Since you’re occupied, I’m going to go take a quick shower” Phil informed him, and Dan smiled in response.

Once Phil was out of the room, Dan immediately reached into his back pocket and retrieved his notebook (he always had one on his person) and turned to a fresh page. The napkin from their first meeting was still on the coffee table, and he placed his notebook beside it, and began to write.

 

_Spend a penny, spend a kiss, spend a night._

_Spend a moment on me, a minute on us._

_You’re the biggest risk I want to take, spend a day in the clouds._

_I’m sticking to you like a moth to a flame,_

_But there’s just one thing you need to know, I’m terrified of being burned._

As was habit, he signed off at the bottom of the page, and ripped it out of the notebook, folding it and placing it in his front pocket. He sat back against the sofa and felt his cheeks begin to ache from smiling and laughing so much, and it was then he realised that the books might actually be right: he was a complete goner.

“Did you miss me?” Phil sang as he jumped on the other edge of the sofa, sat cross-legged, facing Dan.

“The longest,” Dan paused to check the time on his phone, “twenty minutes of my life”

“I know you’re being sarcastic but I’m going to take it as sincerity anyway” Phil smiled widely, and Dan wondered if Phil’s cheeks were aching too.

The paper in his pocket was all Dan could focus on, it was metaphorically burning, begging for Phil to read it. Dan gulped, instantaneously deciding to just bite the bullet. He’d have to share more of his poetry at some point, he couldn’t hide it all from Phil forever. Especially when it was about him.

“I wrote you something” Dan blurted out, the complete opposite of how he wanted to deliver the statement. He wanted to be casual and cool about it, breezy almost, but he was sure he was coming across needy and childish.

But he watched as Phil’s eyes lit up like the Christmas illuminations they visited together a few months prior, and felt himself smile again. Phil truly did bring out the best in him.

“You did?” he asked, seemingly in disbelief, “Can I read it?”

Dan bit his lip, contemplating if he was making the right decision. Phil could easily hate it and laugh at him for it, and consequently never want to see him again. Or, as the more rational side of his brain argued, Phil would respect Dan’s passion for poetry and, regardless of his opinion on it, would appreciate the gesture.

It was that thought that convinced Dan to hand over the paper in his pocket.

He watched as Phil’s eyes skimmed across the page, absorbing Dan’s written word with the utmost excitement. He wondered if Phil had ever read anyone else’s words like that. Dan had certainly never written like that for anyone else.

“Permission to be cliché again?” Phil asked, and Dan was sure he could see tears in the far corner of Phil’s eyes.

“I’ll allow it just this once” Dan replied, sure that his words would be choked if he tried to say any more.

Phil leaned forward to pull Dan into a tight hug, and Dan rested his head on Phil’s chest again, he found it a little too comfortable.

“You don’t have to worry about being burned” Phil whispered, and Dan nodded into Phil’s chest.

Because he knew. He felt safe with Phil, like there was nobody else he wanted to spend as much time with.

The books had finally gotten one thing right: this was how it felt to be falling in love.

\--

A week or so later, over a dinner of takeaway pizzas and cheap beer, Dan had never felt more at home with Phil. He was practically Phil’s roommate, his favourite food was in the freezer and Phil always made sure that Dan’s favourite movies were stacked up by the dvd player ready to watch on repeat. They did everything together, and Dan wondered if this was what it felt like to be truly happy – up until he met Phil he thought happiness was only for soppy romance novels and marketing for greeting cards.

He was always slightly on edge, however, he knew that they had to have the conversation at some point - _what do we mean to each other??_

But Phil had never mentioned it, never even hinted towards it. But Dan wanted even the littlest form of validation. He wanted Phil to know how he felt, and wanted to know if Phil felt the same.

“Dan? Are you okay?” Phil asked, pausing the movie and turning to face him.

Dan didn’t reply, instead bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. They needed to have this conversation, for his own sanity, and if Phil wouldn’t start it, then Dan had to. He just wished he had more time to prepare for it. Or at least enough time to write a little poem explaining his feelings on his behalf.

“Hey,” Phil spoke softly, and threaded his fingers through Dan’s. “Talk to me, what’s on your mind”

“I, um” Dan tried his best to swallow back the lump in his throat, but he knew his voice was close to breaking. “I think we should talk about us”

He saw Phil visibly tense, his body stiffen, and he immediately stopped playing with Dan’s fingers.

“What do you mean, what reason is there to talk about us?” Phil swallowed thickly, and Dan felt incredibly insecure.

“I just think that we should, um, kind of clarify things?” Dan had no idea how to lead the conversation. Nobody had ever been interested in him before and he was fine with it, but he knew he wanted to be with Phil in whatever sense he could, wanted to live what he had read so many characters go through. He wanted love, he wanted stability.

“I don’t see why anything has to change” Phil stated, running a hand through his hair. “We’re having fun, right? And we like each other?”

“Yeah, but-“

“So I don’t see why we have to label anything. Can we not just stay as we are?” Phil looked pleadingly over at Dan, who shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“I’m not asking for you to get down on one knee and propose to me, Phil” Dan could feel tears brimming at the back of his eyes, and he squeezed the bridge of his nose in a sad attempt to keep them at bay.

“Then what _are_ you asking from me, Dan?” Phil asked, pushing for an answer.

But Dan didn’t know, he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He wanted everything Phil had to offer, wanted to know everything about him and get lost in him completely. He just didn’t know how to word it. Or how to act on it.

“I-I don’t know” Dan stuttered, and Phil smiled, and squeezed Dan’s hand.

“Let’s just keep being Dan and Phil, it’s what we do best” he was smiling widely, and it made Dan smile too. He didn’t feel worried anymore, he felt secure in his and Phil’s relationship – whatever the relationship was. But Dan was happy in the moment, and he knew Phil was too, he could feel it in the way Phil kissed him.

There was still an issue Dan felt had to be dealt with, it wasn’t going away. He was growing sure of his feelings, and Phil deserved to know.

\--

Six months of unofficial dating marked their first time. It was the most nerve-wracking night of Dan’s life, but Phil was everything he could have dreamed and more.

When he tried to write a poem about it the following morning, notebook in his lap as he sat in one of Phil’s shirts, no words seemed to do it justice. He tried his hardest to avoid using the term ‘making love’, it made him cringe, but he couldn’t run from the fact that’s what it felt like. It was slow and sweet, and he had never felt more secure in his own skin, his mind kept replaying the memory of Phil raking his eyes down Dan’s body for the first time, licking his lips and his eyes widening in excitement. Dan thought that Phil looked angelic, and the yearning in his chest was never more prominent than when they laid beside each other, both panting and with beads of sweat trickling down their foreheads, hands interlocked over the patchwork duvet.

He had gone through four failed poetry attempts by the time Phil came out of the shower and sat beside him, soon leaning into Dan, and the brunet wrapped an arm around him.

“So last night was fun” Phil said with a grin, and Dan felt himself blush as he smiled down at Phil.

“Yeah?” Dan still wasn’t completely sure that Phil wasn’t just being nice. He was that kind of person, after all.

“Definitely,” Phil replied, a faint blush creeping on his cheeks, “You’re a natural” he told Dan whilst stretching out his free arm that wasn’t against Dan’s body.

“Maybe I should show other people how good I am” Dan teased, and Phil pouted and groaned in argument.

“No,” he elongated the word, “You’re mine” he purposefully widened his eyes to give the best puppy-dog stare he could.

“Completely, one hundred percent yours” Dan confirmed with a firm nod, and leaned down to press a gentle kiss to the tip of Phil’s nose, causing him to giggle.

“This would be the part where you say it back” Dan whispered, and Phil fidgeted.

“Come on, Dan, you know how I feel”

Dan felt like he did, but he had never heard Phil say it, or anything of the sort. But he left the topic alone, he didn’t want to pick at a loose thread.

“So, I was thinking,” Phil began, bringing Dan out of his thoughts. “Could we do this more often?” he asked, gesturing to the two of them, flicking his gaze momentarily over to the bedroom to clarify his point.

“Phil, we’ve been dating for six months, I think it’s safe to say we can definitely do that more often” Dan chuckled, and Phil fidgeted again. Dan was beginning to notice a pattern.

“I mean, we haven’t _really_ been dating” Phil said as he pulled away from Dan to sit opposite him on the sofa.

“But-“

“We’ve just been doing us, remember? We’re just Dan and Phil, we’re not dating, not boyfriends, none of that stuff. Just us, spending all this time together”

“Right” Dan found it easier to agree.

Phil then leaned forward to kiss him passionately, and when they pulled apart, Dan stayed with his lips pressed together. He needed to get something off of his chest.

“Please just answer me this” he pleaded, and Phil’s expression immediately dropped.

“Dan-“

“No, please, Phil. Answer me just one thing”

Phil sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay”

Dan gulped. “Is the reason you’re so hesitant to call us anything, because you’re embarrassed of me?”

Phil looked like a deer caught in headlights, and Dan felt like a target in a shooting range. He felt an overwhelming sense of fear, waiting for what was coming.

“How could you think that?”

“Well you’re so scared to be affiliated with me, so quick to dismiss there’s anything here… it all adds up, don’t you think?”

“Dan, it’s not you” Phil stated calmly.

“Is it because I write poetry?”

“Dan, it’s not you” Phil repeated, voice still calm and as steady as a rock.

“Then what is it?” Dan pushed for an answer, and, as he predicted, Phil fidgeted.

“It’s me. Okay? It’s all me. Not you” he blurted out his words, and Dan remained silent, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I just hate labels. I hate them, feel pressured by them. I feel pressured to be something I’m not. I just feel like we have something good going on here,” he gestured to the two of them, “I don’t want to ruin it by putting us under the strain of being labelled boyfriends. People would begin to expect things and I don’t want that for us. I want things to be like this, easy and chilled, just me and you with no pressures”

Dan sighed in relief, the metaphorical fog clearing from his mind. Phil wasn’t embarrassed of him. He only had both their interests at heart, and Dan understood where he was coming from. He had never been in a relationship, he wouldn’t know how to act, and from what he’d read in the past, people do indeed expect things from couples. He didn’t know if he was ready for it either.

He was more than happy to continue being just Dan and Phil, if Phil was too. He wanted more of the kisses, more of the mindblowing sex, more of the intimacy he had been craving and missing out on his whole life.

“So can we please drop this whole thing?” Phil asked, and Dan nodded happily. He was happy to have the whole thing dropped, now that he wasn’t doubtful. “And you’re not worried about anything anymore?” he asked as a follow-up, and Dan shook his head.

And as they kissed, Dan felt all of the pent-up stress just melt away, and he was lost in Phil once again.

\--

The next few days were a whirlwind. It started on the Tuesday evening, Dan had just gotten home from a family dinner and checked his phone, smiling to himself as he saw Phil’s name as the sender.

_My place? 11:30 ish?? ;)_

The time was already eleven, the dinner went on for longer than Dan anticipated, and he thought that being fashionably early wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. He was having withdrawal symptoms from Phil already, and the sooner he could satisfy his cravings the better.

He flagged down a taxi almost immediately, as if the universe was more than happy to comply with Dan’s wish to get laid. He was almost positive that sex was on the agenda, and it made him giddy to think about it. Though they had only done it one time so far, Dan was more than eager to go again. It seemed that Phil was too, evidently, which only heightened his eagerness.

It seemed to all happen in a second, Dan knocking on the door, Phil swinging it open, and dragging Dan in by his wrist. It started with Phil backing Dan up against the wall, instantly a steamy makeout session which gave Dan chills in the best way, and then Phil jogged into the bedroom with Dan in tow, both a little giddy.

This time was everything their first time could only dream to be. Steamy, hot, passionate, everything Dan thought that romance novels and poetry lied about, he was sure that the characters lied about feeling euphoric, and in a happy daze. But he felt it himself when they finished, his head laid on Phil’s bare chest, Phil’s fingers tickling Dan’s back gently.

Not many words were spoken, but Dan was already writing a poem in his head. Though it would never make it to paper, he smiled as the lines of the stanza slotted into place in his mind.

When he left Phil’s flat bright and early on Wednesday morning, he didn’t stop smiling all the way home, and as soon as he stepped foot inside, he began tidying.

Shifting pictures from the walls, throwing clutter from the bedroom into the bathroom cupboards, making every surface spotless. Dan didn’t know exactly what he and Phil were in terms of a name, they actively avoided labelling themselves in any way, but he knew exactly what it entailed. He shifted everything off of the coffee table and the desk, just in case they decided to get a little more adventurous. Just the thought made him smirk, and he wondered how he ever got by before he met Phil, before he ever _had_ Phil. In more ways than one.

He had no idea why he spent so long fretting about what they meant to each other, when they could have just been doing what they were doing now.

On Thursday night, at the ripe time of 11:45 pm, Dan decided to test the waters.

_My place? Like right now?? ;)_

He felt a wave of excitement wash over him again as he placed his phone on his lap and waited for a response. They were seeing each other on Friday afternoon anyway to go to the cinema, but there was something thrilling about a secret rendezvous the night before, full of passion and hushed laughter at hearing the neighbours complain.

_Y e s. On my way!_

Dan couldn’t keep still as he waited for Phil to arrive, and could barely hold in his excitement when he heard a knock at the door, and Phil was slightly panting.

“Did you just run up four flights of stairs to get here quicker?” Dan asked with a laugh, opening the door for Phil to enter.

“Didn’t want to wait a second longer, did I?” Phil shrugged as if the answer was obvious, and Dan felt a sense of self-pride. Someone actually ran up four flights of stairs for him. That was dedication.

“Right. Time for action” Dan stated before pulling Phil forward by his shirt and initiating a rough, passionate kiss, and then backed Phil against the wall, never leaving his lips.

“Definitely a quick learner” Phil stated breathlessly as Dan moved down to his neck, doing his best to leave little love-bites in his wake.

Dan merely smirked as he continued leaving love-bites across Phil’s neck, and Phil tangled his hands in Dan’s hair when Dan tugged at the skin.

He then shifted his attention to Phil's body. He tugged at the fabric of Phil's jacket, and the other man got the hint and shrugged it off half of the way, and Dan pulled it off and threw it somewhere across the living room, hearing it collide with the parquet. 

Phil gasped as Dan's cold, eager hands made contact with his chest, the brunet licked his lips as he explored, Phil's body was something he could never get enough of. He always found something new about it to adore. 

"Dan-" Phil's words were choked, and Dan bit his lip and looked up at him, and Phil tugged at the hem of his shirt, silently begging for it to be removed, with which Dan was more than happy to comply.

"You're so hot" Dan observed breathlessly once Phil's shirt was a crumpled mess somewhere in the living room, both of them getting increasingly hot and bothered, but Dan was playing the teasing, waiting game, and Phil's impatience was a turn-on, and only spurred him on further.

Phil captured Dan's lips in a rough kiss, open-mouthed, mumbling something of a reciprocation into his mouth.

Dan liked to think of Phil's body as a blank canvas, all for him alone to enjoy. He decided to try and arrange the next set of love-bites in a pattern on Phil's chest, and set to work, all the time revelling in the gasps and moans that the biting elicited from Phil. He occupied himself by once again tangling his hands in Dan's already curly hair and breathing out a string of curse words, pulling on Dan's hair when he hit a particularly sensitive spot. 

When Dan pulled away, licking his lips as he leaned back to observe his work, Phil sat up and again initiated a rough kiss, one that sent Dan back slightly, momentarily unbalancing his equilibrium. 

They broke apart for a second, foreheads resting against each other, and Dan had prime view of the love-bites all across Phil's pale chest, his lips curled into a smile as he watched them slowly deepen in colour.

"What did you do?" Phil asked in slight shock, catching sight of his chest. 

Dan simply pecked his lips smugly. "I arranged them in the letter D. You know, my name and... something else" 

"For the love of all that is holy take me to the bedroom" Phil instructed, pupils dilated in lust.

Dan felt a sense of dominance as he led Phil into the bedroom, feeling in control since they were in his flat for the first time.

It was everything Dan wanted it to be. Passionate, steamy, yet a step up from their last encounter. Phil fell asleep first afterwards, and Dan scribbled down ideas for poetry lines in a random notebook in the drawer of his nightstand, then settled down to sleep himself, a satisfied smile on his face as he thought of a fact he knew for sure: he was going to ache in the morning.

When Phil was preparing to leave at the crack of dawn on Friday morning, only mere hours until they were going to meet again for the cinema trip, Dan felt smug when he noticed Phil’s neck, dotted with deep purple love-bites, as he pulled on his coat, mumbling about how hard they would be to cover up. Dan only shrugged, and Phil winked before closing the door behind him, and Dan flopped back down onto the sofa, a – probably obnoxious – smile on his face.

But there was one thing that still niggled at the back of his mind when he was alone. He was still so very deeply in love with Phil.

\--

“So you’re friends with benefits?” Dan’s friend, Jamie, asked when Dan was out for a drink with him and another friend, Aidan the following week – three more ‘encounters’ later.

“We’re avoiding calling it anything but I guess so, yeah” Dan replied, hiding his growing smile behind his pint glass.

“I’ve not seen you this smiley since you got a poem published in the school newspaper in year seven” Aidan observed with a smirk, and Dan just knew he was blushing.

“How is the sex, by the way?” Jamie asked, and Aidan nodded, wanting to know too.

“Absolutely fucking _phenomenal_ ” Dan answered, struggling to not gush.

The three then clinked their glasses together, in honour of Dan ‘finally being a man’ and getting laid. It was then that Dan’s phone buzzed on the table, and all three men hunched over to look at it.

“Oops, booty call!” Jamie exclaimed and Dan threw his head back in laughter, quickly texting Phil back to say that he’d be there as soon as possible.

“Would you mind?” Dan asked with a grimace, not wanting to fully abandon his friends just for the promise of sex, but then again it was with _Phil,_ and he would be insane to pass the opportunity up.

“You do what you’ve gotta do” Aidan said with a shrug, indifferent.

“Or _who_ you’ve gotta do” Jamie corrected him with a wink and Dan flicked him off jokingly.

Aidan added an ‘I’d do the same thing’ as Dan bid his goodbyes to his friends.

He broke into a steady jog as his phone buzzed again, as the text reading ‘ _Hurryyyyyyyyyy :(‘_ illuminated across his screen.

\--

One Saturday night, Dan was having an early night, after a hectic day of he and Phil spending the day rock climbing with a group of Phil’s friends.

He was awoken by his vibrating phone at 1 am, Phil’s goofy caller ID picture beaming at him. Dan was still half-asleep as he slammed his hand onto his nightstand, and shuffled it around until he made contact with his phone, and lifted it up to his ear, almost forgetting to click answer.

“Hello?” Dan’s voice was croaky, raspy, laced with sleep.

He heard Phil’s deep laugh from the other end of the line.

“Did I wake you?” Phil asked, sounding the complete opposite.

“No it’s fine,” Dan assured him, wiping his eyes. “But I don’t think I can come over right now, I feel like I’m going to collapse”

Phil chuckled, and the sound alone was enough to give Dan a tingling sensation.

“Surprisingly that’s not why I called,” he revealed. “But good to know where your mind is”

“You never usually care where my mind is. It’s my mouth you’re always bothered about” Dan smirked, gradually feeling more awake.

“Not always!” Phil defended. “Sometimes it’s… another part of you”

“Of course, Phil”

“ _Anyway,”_ Phil attempted to move the topic of conversation, and Dan was highly amused. “I wanted to tell you something”

“Go ahead” Dan prompted, stifling a yawn.

There was silence from Phil’s end of the call for at least ten seconds, and Dan was close to ending the call and trying to call Phil again, but then he heard a sigh, and clutched the phone to his ear again.

“I don’t- I don’t really know how to say this” Phil said nervously, and Dan swallowed thickly.

_Was Phil going to say he loved him?_

“Just… Just try your best” Dan tried his best to coach Phil, though technically he had no idea what Phil wanted to say. He only had hopes.

“I guess I just want to tell you that I really appreciate you being there” Phil struggled against his words.

“I’ll always be here. For whatever and whenever you might want me” Dan assured him.

“It’s just, like, I’ve never really had anyone solid in my life until you, and I just really appreciate that you haven’t left me” Dan could relate to Phil’s words so much. “I trust you more than anyone”

“I trust you more than anyone, too” Dan told him, still in the state of tiredness that he couldn’t produce original functioning sentences that weren’t carbon copies of Phil’s.

“It’s a relief that you said that” Phil laughed, sounding more comfortable than he did before, and it made Dan’s heart sink a little. If Phil had said what was on his chest, he wouldn’t be professing his love. If he even loved Dan at all. So Dan didn’t say it either.

“Dan?” Phil intonated his name, pricking Dan’s interest again. _There was still hope._

“Yeah?” he asked, preparing the perfect way to word his feelings. A smile crept up on his lips just thinking of what they could do when they confess their love to each other, things wouldn’t be all that different but he could finally-

“I’m sorry I woke you” Phil then ended the call, before Dan even had a chance to say goodbye. His phone slipped out of his hand as he sat in silence, staring up at the ceiling.

He felt tears pool in his waterline, and wasted no time in switching on his desk lamp and snatching the notebook from the drawer, and he flicked to a clean page.

_Rule #1 of friends with benefits: no feelings._

_Rule #2 of friends with benefits: no love._

_Rule #3 of friends with benefits: he won’t reciprocate them._

_\--_

Dan spent the next few days holed up in his flat, notebook on his desk in front of him, pieces of old poetry spread around the coffee table behind him.

He tapped his pen impatiently against the blank paper of his notebook, clenching his other hand into a fist in frustration. His phone laid beside the notebook, not having buzzed once.

He wanted to call. It took all of his self-will not to. He wasn’t bothered about a hookup, he just missed Phil’s presence. He missed Phil’s laugh, his smile, his calming influence. Dan’s emotions were in overdrive, and it was the first time ever that he couldn’t filter them out through poetry, he just felt numb, dull.

There was only one cure, and the cure was seemingly unattainable.

Dan had texted, multiple times, sounding as breezy as he could. Not too needy, not too uncaring. Just one friend checking up on another, wanting the benefit of reciprocation.

His heart sank when he saw that Phil had read every text hours ago, yet made no attempt to reply. He had a gut feeling that he refused to acknowledge, knowing that his metaphorical heart wouldn’t be able to take it. It was always the stereotype that writers and poets fall so hard and so easily, invest themselves in another person so much that it’s impossible to see the light of realisation.

It was the first stereotype Dan felt he fit into.

There was nobody else to call, nobody’s shoulder to cry on. He knew what was meant by friends with benefits. He just thought that because they were Dan and Phil, they were just being themselves, things would be different.

At three thirty, he tried another text. One line, one emoji.

At three thirty-two, it was read.

At seven fifty-seven, there was still no reply.

At nine twenty-five, he was in tears.

At nine fifty-five, he picked up his pen, and the words came flowing faster than his tears.

_The twilight seeps into the memories of yesterday,_

_The darkness sinks into the air, screaming your name._

_The aching in my chest, broken, craves sweet release._

_Feeling you, I’m alone at night, just me and the moon’s lullaby._

_Hushed whispers and silent calls, you’re in my veins._

At ten twenty-three, he picked up the phone, held it to his ear and bit his lip as the dial tone greeted him.

At ten twenty-four, he had hope.

“Danny!” Phil exclaimed, his voice obnoxiously loud, significantly louder than the pounding dance music in the background.

“Phil” Dan replied, trying his hardest to not let any emotion slip into his tone.

“How are you?” Phil asked, sounding as casual as ever.

“You-you never returned my texts” Dan stated, pressing his lips together.

There was no response for a moment or two, he couldn’t make anything out. Phil evidently had his hand cupped over his phone to muffle both the music and his voice. Dan wasn’t stupid, he knew what was happening, and they weren’t tied at the hip.

He just wanted a response, any contact at all that had been lacking for the past few days.

When he could hear Phil’s end of the call clearly again, the music was in the distance.

“What is it you said, Danny boy?” Phil laughed at himself as he slurred on some words. Dan gripped the side of his desk.

“My texts. Your,” Dan had to pause to swallow back the lump in his throat. “Your phone said you read them”

“I’m out of town” Phil replied bluntly, so bluntly that it took Dan by surprise.

“Oh,” Dan could tell his voice was smaller than before. “Are we okay?” he had to ask. For his own sanity, he had to ask.

“We’re fine” Phil’s tone was incredibly harsh, despite him slurring some syllables. It made Dan squirm. “Listen, I have to go”

Dan listened to the background sounds, and heard a chorus of cheers, and a high-pitched laugh that was getting closer to the receiver.

“I-“ he stopped himself from saying what he wanted to say. Despite everything, the supposed snubbing, Dan did love Phil. And he wanted him to know it. He thought that maybe that would be the best time, with Phil being drunk and all, but he couldn’t handle rejection. Even in a drunken slur, he wouldn’t be able to handle a flat-out rejection, and it was obvious Phil wasn’t in the greatest of moods. At least not with Dan.

And Dan didn’t know why. He didn’t know why any of this was happening.

Phil hung up the call without another word, leaving Dan to croak out an ‘I love you’ to a dead line as his phone screen faded to black.

\--

The next day he wrote. He wrote until his hands ached and his knuckles were white from clutching his pen so tightly. He was running on no sleep, it was a night of tossing and turning and being alone, clutching the pillow where his lover once laid.

Crumpled up pieces of paper littered his feet, failed attempts of crossed out metaphors and scribbled out clichés. His lips were pressed into a fine line as he wrote, eyebrows furrowed. The plastic wallet titled ‘Phil’ laid beside his desk, a few pieces of poetry piled on top of it.

 

_Make it alright, make me okay._

_A bee without its honey, a flower without its petals,_

_Is there any purpose, if we cannot heal?_

_I need the light, I need the bright,_

_I want you, you’re the darkest of nights._

He immediately ripped it from the notebook and placed it atop the pile on the plastic wallet, and ran a hand through his hair.

He let out a shaky breath as he looked out of the window his desk leaned against, and looked down at the people who were going about their day, oblivious to his pain. He believed everyone had a story, one they had no desire to tell. It was a belief he assumed he got from writing so much.

As he watched a car zoom out of view, his pen hit paper once more, as fluidly as the sunset hit the distant horizon.

 

_Walking, running, dashing away._

_Distance, lately, an obstacle of three._

_Entice. Call. Delete._

_Like the ant at a picnic I fear to intrude:_

_I just want your sugar, you’re sweet to the touch._

“Painfully relevant” Dan muttered to himself before ripping the page out and adding it to the pile.

It seemed almost instinct, to continue writing on the next fresh page.

 

_You want the world, I’ll give you the universe._

_You want a cliché, I’ll move the stars, as light as you are free._

_I’ll change the world, all in your name,_

_Scream into the void, wake up your smile._

_I think I might fall, berate my ignorance._

_I’ll change for you, but you have no clue,_

_Pay no care, won’t hear my blues._

He wanted to call. He _really_ wanted to call. These feelings were new to him, he wanted to explore them, but he wanted Phil more.

He missed his friend, the bumbling Phil he met at the coffeshop, the goofy Phil he could innocently cuddle up to during movie nights, laughing together over characters’ kooky antics and spilt popcorn.

By this point, Dan was beginning to wonder if Phil ever cared. Then in the same second it all came flooding back to him in vivid detail: the delicate hand brushes, the syrupy pancake kisses in the early morning. His lips still tingled whenever he thought of Phil, the cliché of letting the one you love slip through your fingers crossed his mind.

He was tired of living through the characters he created in his poetry, regardless of the fact they all spoke from his perspective. He knew that friends with benefits wasn’t a relationship, but he knew that they should at least _talk_ to each other, even if it was just to arrange a hookup. He just always assumed that they had a strong enough foundation, their friendship being built over months, and it was only now he was beginning to realise the cracks – as deep as the dimples on his cheeks that Phil liked to poke playfully.

Fragile, consequently irreparable, like the shards in his floor-length mirror that were stuck together with sellotape. A temporary fix.

A metaphor had never been clearer to him.

With that in mind, he began to write once again, with tears in his eyes.

\--

It was another week until he smiled, until his thoughts weren’t plagued.

One of his friends who was fulfilling her biggest life wish - to travel the world – had returned home for a week, and had dropped by to see him. They were catching up over lukewarm coffee and leftover biscuits, and the conversation soon turned serious.

“So how’s the love life? Good?” his friend, Cathleen, asked, taking a curious sip of coffee.

Dan sub-consciously gripped his mug even tighter, and flicked his gaze over to the peeling wall, looking anywhere but at her.

“I don’t know, to be honest” he answered truthfully, yet somehow managed to make his tone more comical. Cathleen laughed.

“Amen to that. Hook-ups all across the world but nobody ever wants to call back afterwards” she laughed again, and clinked her mug against Dan’s. Dan felt himself smile, the first genuine smile in days.

“Did you ever love any of them?” Dan asked, not thinking his question through. Cathleen only called them hook-ups, he knew, but that’s all he and Phil had – he held onto the hope that it was what they were still having, despite Phil blanking him for weeks – but Dan knew he was in love. It was clearly possible.

Cathleen laughed again, and flicked some auburn locks of hair over her shoulder. Dan noticed her press her lips together for a few seconds before answering.

“I mean, what is love, really?” she posed existentially. “Great sex and them actually staying the morning after? In which case yes, madly in love with one of them.”

“Did he make you pancakes?” it was some sort of weird closure for Dan.

“Pancakes, waffles, full English…” Cathleen trailed off and wiggled her eyebrows, and the two shared a hearty laugh.

“No but seriously” Cathleen dipped her head and swirled her remaining coffee around in her mug, “I’ve never been in love. I guess I always run away before I can have a chance to, you know? Some kind of complex”

There was a silence for the first time since Cathleen arrived, both deep in thought.

“What about you, mister poetic? Anyone snapped you up yet?” she asked, slightly more pressing than the last time she asked.

“I, um” he was stalling for time. Either for Cathleen to get bored and move on, or for Phil to get in contact. He knew none were going to happen. “I don’t really know anymore”

Despite him using pretty much the same answer twice, he realised there was not much that he _did_ know, not when it came to Phil. He was expecting Cathleen to tut disapprovingly, but she instead placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, and raised her mug.

“Cheers to being members of the lonely hearts club” she toasted, and Dan clinked their mugs.

“I feel like I’m going to be taking up residence there” he mumbled. Cathleen laughed, but Dan felt a sinking feeling in his stomach when he realised just how true his words may prove to be.

\--

It was an overcast Thursday morning when it happened. Dan was slowly beginning to get some sleep after days of sleepless nights of writing and wishing for the phone to ring.

The echo of his ringtone bounced from the plain, bare walls of his bedroom and broke him fully out of his slumber. He knew it was Aidan’s birthday at the weekend, and he decided to let the call go to voicemail, considering it would only be either Aidan or Jamie calling to confirm plans that Dan felt like he could go to without breaking down. He was slowly getting better. He’d never had to get over anybody before, but he knew this was what it felt like. It was heartwrenching for weeks, tears and screams galore, but gradually it seemed like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel just seemed longer than humanly – and metaphorically – possible.

When the phone stopped ringing, he smiled at the silence, and pulled the duvet tighter around his body. Though he couldn’t help but wonder, if things were different, if he would have someone to snuggle into, innocence in the action but affection in the intention.

The phone rang again.

With a huff of annoyance, he reached an arm out of the duvet and shuddered at the cold air that greeted him, and grabbed the phone from the bedside table.

“Aidan I’ll come to your damn birthday thing” he snapped, tiredness still enrapturing him and patience not yet in the question.

There was a few seconds of silence.

“Dan?” Phil’s voice caused Dan’s eyes to snap open and his blood to run cold.

“Hi” was all he could manage.

“I’m sorry if I woke you…” Phil trailed off, clearly having picked up on Dan’s sleepy hostility.

Not that he wouldn’t be hostile anyway, Phil had certainly earned the reaction.

“Kind of” he answered, well aware of how short his answers were.

“I just assumed that you were awake, I guess, I know you used to be an early riser when we…”

“Yeah, I was. Had to get out before people speculated anything, didn’t I” Dan interjected, and kept his tone of voice cold. He sat up in his bed, balling his hand into a fist.

Phil didn’t acknowledge his answer.

“So, um, I kind of really need to talk to you,” Phil stated, and Dan gulped. “Are you free tonight?”

_You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,_ was Dan’s initial thought. His second thought was a million yeses, he just wanted Phil’s presence again, he wanted to talk. Though he wouldn’t resort to putting out straight away again, he respected his own morals.

“When and where”

“Well, I, um,” Phil was tumbling over his words, and Dan couldn’t help but wonder why. But deep down, he hoped it was because of guilt. “I was kind of thinking we could go out somewhere. You know, together”

“Where?” Dan asked, hearing his tone involuntarily soften slightly.

“It’s a surprise. I’ll pick you up at about eight?”

Dan hated how he could feel himself swooning all over again.

“Sounds great” he said, swallowing back the lump in his throat.

“It’s a plan” Phil confirmed, and Dan gripped the phone tighter, his eyes beginning to burn with tears threatening to fall. “Dan?”

He didn’t leave time for Dan to answer.

“I’ve missed you”

And then he was gone, hung up abruptly once again.

Dan realised the books had gotten it wrong: he wasn’t moving on. He was just kidding himself, and he had certainly not fallen out of love. He was falling all over again just at the sound of Phil’s voice, and he knew enough to know that it was something special. It would be even more special if it was reciprocated.

As he jumped out of bed and rushed through his morning routine, there was one thought at the forefront of his mind: _maybe that’s why he wants to talk to me. Maybe he’s in love with me too._

The poems on his desk reminded him not to kid himself.

\--

Five thirty-four, he was writing again. He had been ready for about half an hour, with just under three hours to spare. He couldn’t prep himself anymore, he had taken extra time in accentuating the features that Phil used to compliment the most during their hook-ups. He wanted to put himself in the best stead possible.

_Second chances, so overrated._

_A fourth, a fifth, a twenty-eighth._

_For love it’s impeccable, the standard we all must follow,_

_Reciprocation and dedication, no wiggle room, no exceptions._

_For me, you’re a million, blinding the very light I crave._

_For you, I’m a grain in the sand you slip through your fingers._

Without so much as a second thought, he ripped it from the notebook and added it to the pile of past poetry on the plastic wallet titled ‘Phil’, then picked them all up and slipped them inside the wallet, and dropped it on the desk in front of him.

In the back of his mind, his more rational thinking took over, reminding him again and again that this meeting could have a negative outcome. That he should expect it, just in case, to soften the blow. His war paint was in the form of his words, his armour the emotion that went into them.

“A last-ditch attempt, if all else fails” he sighed as he ran his finger over Phil’s name.

He slipped the wallet into his backpack which rested against the sofa messily, ready to go with him when Phil arrived. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.

\--

Phil’s car was cleaner than the last time Dan was in it.

Before, takeaway boxes and milkshake cups littered the dashboard, and discarded sugar from old sweet packets pooled on the mats. Now, it was clean, pristine, topped off with a bubblegum scented air freshener. As soon as Dan got in, he had to smile, the scent was so Phil, he was never one to be conventional.

He replied civilly to Phil’s greeting, and they sat in silence for a lot of the journey. Dan kept his backpack on his lap, hugging it to his chest, occasionally hearing the crinkling of the plastic wallet. It made him gulp.

“So where are we going?” he asked eventually, his curiosity getting the better of him. They were just driving out of the town’s limits, and Phil laughed, his gaze never leaving the road in front of them.

“Ever the eager one,” he chuckled, and Dan diverted his gaze to the floor. “You’ll see” he added before pressing down on the accelerator.

Dan kept his gaze on his lap the whole journey, determined not to strike up conversation. He knew it wasn’t how one was supposed to act around the one they’re so madly in love with, but he was still human, and he was understandably hurt. Phil had essentially cut all contact with him, and suddenly he wanted to take Dan somewhere, just out of the blue.

But there was a large part of him that was giddy with excitement, and his stomach did a flip of anticipation whenever they drove over a speed bump. He was prepared to put all of his cards on the table. He didn’t want to be friends with benefits anymore: he had lost his friend along the way and there sure as hell weren’t any benefits anymore.

“Okay, we’re here” Phil announced, taking the key out of the ignition. Dan looked up at his surroundings, and a gasp escaped his lips. Phil smiled beside him, looking at the childlike wonder in Dan’s eyes.

“I know you always say that you wanted to visit a secluded place like this” Phil recalled, breaking the silence.

Dan was still taking in the landscape. In the growing darkness, he didn’t know if they were on a clifftop or just an incredibly tall hill, but they were high up nonetheless, the view looking down on dimly lit towns aplenty.

“It’s beautiful” Dan was breathless, the poet instincts in him immediately yearning to write. Colour symbolism, imagery, he had a million and one ideas already.

He then realised the reason he was here, and who he was here with, and what was on the line. What the poems in his backpack were about. The remembrance made him cower into himself that much more.

“How long were we driving for?” he asked, knowing that there wasn’t a place like this anywhere near his and Phil’s town. The car was guarded by a canopy of trees, and it was more nature than their town had in over ten years.

“About twenty minutes, give or take” Phil answered with a casual shrug. “Come on”

Dan turned to look at him, but Phil was already getting out of the car. Going somewhere he didn’t know when it was getting darker by the minute was a less than desirable situation, but he couldn’t help but feel safe around Phil, despite how Phil had treated him.

“What the hell are you doing” it was a statement more than a question, and he watched Phil climb onto the car’s bonnet and stretch out his legs, getting comfortable in a laying position.

“You can’t tell me that this isn’t a dream of yours, stargazing in a natural paradise” Phil sang the last part, and smiled a toothy grin. He knew it was true, Dan had told him about it a long time ago.

“It’s not really a paradise, there’s gravel in my shoes and there are nettles here”

“Hey, I tried! Grade A-plus for effort, right?” Phil asked pleadingly, sticking out his bottom lip as Dan climbed up beside him, steadily placing his backpack flat on his stomach as he stretched out on the bonnet too.

The atmosphere was light and easy, playful, very much like the way they used to be. Before the whole friends with benefits situation came in and everything changed. Dan was craving closure, but he wasn’t sure if repetition of the past was what he needed. He simply shrugged to Phil’s question, and Phil swatted him playfully on the arm, causing them both to share a laugh.

Once their laughter died down, Dan felt his body tense as the silence began to taunt him.

“You said you needed to talk” Dan brought the topic up, and he heard Phil sigh, as if it was brought up too quickly.

“Yeah…” he trailed off and sighed again, and placed his arms behind his head. “We do”

Dan fidgeted awkwardly.

“I’ve really missed you, Dan” Phil told him, and those words alone made him tear up, they had a different effect on him now that Phil was saying them in front of him and not through the phone. He could hear the sincerity in his tone.

“I’ve missed you too,” Dan replied quietly, playing with the strap of his backpack. “But you could’ve called”

He was expecting Phil to shoot back with ‘you could have called me too’, but he didn’t. He sighed again – Dan noticed he was doing it a lot.

“I know. I should have, and I’m sorry. I’ve just been…” he paused for a second, “busy”

“With work?” Dan pressed, it would explain a lot if Phil had gotten a promotion, it would come with more responsibilities.

“No” Phil answered, and a little part of Dan’s hope dissipated.

They fell into silence again. Dan could hear Phil’s breathing quicken, as if something was getting him worked up. But the wallet of poems in his backpack felt like lead, the whole situation was aching to be resolved.

“Phil I have to tell you something” he blurted out before his mind could formulate a more articulate alternative.

Phil breathed a small sigh of relief and prompted Dan to continue.

“I, um, I don’t really know how to say this…” he bit his lip as he tried to think of how to say ‘I love you’ without saying it outright and being overly cliché. There was a sizeable chance he wouldn’t get the response he was praying for.

“I second that” Phil chuckled nervously.

_Is he going to say the same thing_ was Dan’s first reaction, his hopeless romantic poet side was always more dominant than his rational thinking. He couldn’t rule out the chance that Phil was going to say he loved him too, if he put things into perspective. He had clearly listened to Dan in the past, as he had said multiple times he had always wanted to visit a secluded area overlooking towns, he had read about them in books and he adored the imagery, he wanted to see it for himself. It was undeniably romantic, with the draping trees and the seclusion, the moonlight breaking through the leaves and shining on them.

“We could, um, always say our stuff at the same time?” Phil suggested, and Dan agreed, finding the proposition a lot less daunting. With the smile that Phil gave him, he was letting himself become all the more sure that they were going to say the same thing.

“On the count of three?” Phil held up three fingers and Dan nodded, awaiting the countdown.

_Three._

Dan took a deep breath. He had only read about confessing love in books, and had always scoffed at the characters. He never thought it actually happened in real life, he always just assumed both parties knew that they were in love with one another and that was enough. But Phil was a closed book, and Dan wanted to read his every page.

_Two._

Phil took a deep breath, and bit his lip. Dan wanted to kiss them all over. He was craving Phil’s kisses more than he was craving to move on.

_One._

“I’m in love with you”

“I met someone“

\--

“You,” Dan tried to swallow back the lump in his throat (and failed). “You met someone?”

“Did you just say you were in love with me?” Phil asked in rebuttal, looking genuinely shocked. Dan noticed how Phil scooted a little further away. There was a pain in his chest, like he’d been violently punched. The books had gotten another thing right. It was all a cliché when it was actually happening to you.

“Yours first,” Dan insisted. “When did you meet them?” he was putting all his effort into his voice not breaking.

“About a month ago” Phil recalled, a smile growing on his lips. Dan’s frown was only deepening. “We met in the restaurant she works at, we really hit it off” Phil continued to gush, and Dan didn’t have any strength to muster a reply. Not that it mattered.

“I think I’m in love with her, Dan” Phil turned to face him, and Dan knew his mouth was open. Phil told Dan that he had commitment issues, Phil had said that Dan wasn’t the reason he wouldn’t commit to a relationship. Phil had fallen in love within a month with someone that wasn’t Dan, and Dan had fallen in love with Phil in a matter of weeks. He felt weakened by Phil’s words, and it truly was like a dagger to his heart. The same physical backlash. He could practically feel their history slipping through his fingers.

“So you were with her whilst we were…” Dan didn’t have to finish his sentence. Whilst they were fooling around under false pretences.

“Not in the same way. That night you called… I was at her friend’s party with her. That was the night we first, you know. You caught me off guard.”

Another punch to the gut, another irreparable wound to his once brave heart.

“That’s why you said you had to go, why you were busy…” he attempted to steady his tone, “You’re in love with her” Dan tried to process Phil’s words, and Phil nodded from beside him. He still had yet to press Dan about his revelation, and Dan was strangely thankful for it.

“I really am. I can’t imagine life without her, Dan” Phil confirmed, and Dan squeezed his eyes shut. _Sounds familiar,_ he thought, recalling the sleepless nights he cried into the pillow where Phil once slept, wondering why it all went wrong, why he wasn’t good enough. Why he couldn’t move on. Why he didn’t _want_ to move on.

“So I kind of needed to talk to you so we could, you know, stop this” Phil gestured to himself and Dan. That’s why Phil had brought him here, to a place he knew Dan would love and be entranced by. It was to butter him up before breaking him down.

“But I love you” Dan’s voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper, and he was completely uncaring about how pathetic he sounded. He was putting everything on the line, regardless of how it made him look. He needed Phil. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose.

 “B-But we agreed we weren’t exclusive. No labels, no feelings, no pressures…” Phil looked taken aback as he recounted the rules of their friends with benefits situation, and Dan gritted his teeth together. It was as if Phil refused to acknowledge him the first time around. He had no problem in dismissing Dan’s declaration and gushing about this girl that he spoke about in such a way Dan could only dream.

“It’s not like I wanted to fall in love with you, you’ve blanked me and ignored my existence for nearly two months” he masked his overwhelming sadness with anger. He was always good at masking things with words, it was what he did best. But this was, of course, the first time he failed, and his voice cracked.

“Dan, we were never exclusive…” Phil continued to defend himself, and Dan threw his arms up in the air, careful not to shift too much on the bonnet.

“Evidently not, Phil! Whilst I was crying over you and writing poem after poem about you, you were out meeting someone else and didn’t even have the decency to tell me! Do you think that’s fucking fair?” Dan shouted, though his voice was incredibly strained, still choked by emotion.

He scrambled off the car bonnet, slung his backpack over his shoulder walked around behind the car. He struggled to control the shakiness in his legs as he walked, and he had no idea where he was going, he didn’t even know where he was, but he knew that he wanted his distance. Phil had certainly already gotten his.

“Dan where are you going? I’ll take you home…”

“Is it really that easy for you to forget me?” Dan cried, turning around on his heel and walking back up to Phil. “Forget about us?”

“There was never any us, we were always just friends…”

“No. That’s bullshit, Phil, and you know it.” Dan poked his finger at him, “Friends don’t ignore each other for two months”

Phil bit his lip again, and Dan dropped his finger as he wiped his eyes with a balled fist, feeling his legs begin to give way and a straining feeling in his throat.

“Friends don’t kiss each other the way you kissed me” his voice cracked again, and he wiped his eyes once again, his other hand tightening around his bag strap.

“I’m sorry” Phil’s voice showed no signs of breaking, and Dan wondered how. How could he not feel a thing, seeing Dan in such a state. He was pouring his heart out to him, and Phil didn’t seem to care.

“Dan, I’m sorry, but I’m in love with someone else. I want to be with Kellsie, she makes me happy”

It made Dan stagger backwards a little. He had heard rejection was one of the hardest things life could throw, but he never knew it would hurt quite this much. He remembered when Phil said that Dan made him happy, and there was no doubt or insincerity in his tone. He said it after saying he’d never let Dan go, and Dan believed him. He didn’t know who was more at fault.

“You just know when they’re the one” Phil continued, and Dan felt sick. He was in love with a man who had commitment issues, a man that was now in love with a girl he was willing to commit to, the way he wouldn’t commit to Dan.

“But you said I was yours…” Dan recalled the morning after their first time, and Phil shook his head.

“I can’t remember what I said. I’ve kind of forgotten a lot of what happened before Kellsie”

The way Phil was speaking reminded Dan of the way he would speak about Phil to Aidan and Jamie, so blissfully wrapped up in love with someone that it was hard to remember a time before them.

But Phil was dismissing all that they ever had, all that Dan ever wanted to tell the world about.

There was a time when Dan felt like they were so close, they were so close to Phil opening up and them being able to be a real couple, beyond the title that he now so passionately despised.

There was a silence as both men stood facing one another, Dan looking down at the ground letting his tears slip onto the gravel, and Phil seemingly unfazed.

“Come on, I’ll take you home” he offered, voice quiet and almost a mumble.

Dan had no dignity left, so he got in the car. He had no money for a taxi, no available friends on call to pick him up. He had no dignity left after confessing his feelings to the man he’d fallen unequivocally in love with, and got shot down so brutally. Confessed his love to the man who had overcome his commitment issues with someone that wasn’t Dan, someone he was willing to spend his life with that wasn’t Dan.

\--

Not a word was spoken the entire journey back. The bubblegum air freshener made Dan feel sick.

As they pulled up outside Dan’s apartment building, he clutched his backpack. He had been biting back words the whole way home, and this would be his last chance. Phil had shown no interest in being friends anymore.

“How is it so easy for you to just walk away?” he asked, and Phil sighed, almost as if he was getting bored of the topic.

“There’s nothing to walk away from. We were just fooling around, nothing more, nothing less”

The words still hurt Dan. Every time Phil denied what they had was anything special beyond sex, he fell deeper into a rut only Phil could get him out of.

Dan didn’t have the heart to respond, and reached for the door handle.

“Wait!” Phil called before Dan got out, and for just a second, Dan got his hopes up.

“Here, I meant to give you this a while ago, but you know” Phil pressed something into Dan’s hands.

With trembling fingers he unfurled the object, quickly realising it was the napkin from their first meeting. Phil was essentially getting rid of all the evidence that Dan was ever in his life. It hurt more than any book or piece of poetry had ever described it.

Dan managed to stop himself before asking ‘do you not want to keep it’ and instead nodded and slipped it into his pocket. He then unzipped his backpack and dropped the plastic wallet onto the passenger seat.

Without another word he turned and ran into the building, hand over his mouth and letting out the wails he’d fought so desperately to keep in the whole journey home. He cried into the napkin, smudging his former self’s happy, promising words, washing away any remaining hope he had left.

\--

Phil Lester sat in the bedroom of his flat, his girlfriend happily bustling away in the living room. He had been watching his phone the whole day, only for it never to light up.

He retrieved the plastic wallet from under his pillow and skimmed through the poems once more, not having fully comprehended them the night before. He had always admired the way Dan was able to pour his heart out through his words, and he had always loved reading Dan’s poetry. He had never understood why Dan was so stubborn and wouldn’t send his poetry off to be considered for publication, or at least post it online. He had never seen him write in the way he wrote these particular poems, though, and Phil knew that they were one of a kind. It made him shudder slightly to ponder why.

The finale, titled _Nightshade,_ was the one that resonated in his mind most, that he thought about when he went to sleep that night.

 

_Goodbyes. Farewells. Endings._

_The quiet, it taunts me, discontent seeps through the cracks in our foundation._

_It’s difficult, they say, to forget your first love;_

_The one that loved you, broke you, withdrew._

_You wanted a galaxy, I gave you my stars, they shone dully in your eyes._

_You wanted a try, I gave you my all, our history wipes bare._

_Confusion, deception, I was lost in your world,_

_From you and to me, a heavy heart and a broken record._

_You’re up in the stars, basking in the glow of another,_

_Then there’s me, the future you left in the past._

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has taken a pretty long time to write wow, but I’m really glad it’s finally posted and I powered through it!  
> I really hope you all liked it (please tell me if you did) and hopefully you’ll all stick around for the next instalment of the albumfic :)
> 
> As always, your support means the absolute world to me, and feel free to follow my twitter (lestersunrise) and follow me on tumblr (cafephan)  
> !  
> Thank you again for taking the time to read the fic, it means more than you’ll ever know xx


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